Reaction Time
by emoly01
Summary: Ed received a box of fanfiction stories. - He shot to his feet, crappy wooden chair scraping on the tiled library floor before shouting at the book, "I would never do that!"


Brief note from the author: A quick reminder to us all that fanfiction isn't perfect - but there's hope.

Ed stared in horror at the book in his hands. He shot to his feet, crappy wooden chair scraping on the tiled library floor before shouting at the book, "I would never do that!" Some whispers ran along the shelves as people wondered what got Ed riled up. Defeated, Ed plopped back down in his chair. He'd have been glad he was in this little mostly unused alcove in the library, surrounded by tall bookshelves filled to the brim, except that he was too absorbed in what he was reading to realize his outburst was embarrassing.

"Brother?" Al asked worriedly, sitting beside him. Ed didn't reply. They had been doing research, as far as Al knew, when Ed stood up and exploded. His body was back, and Ed was unable to use alchemy. They'd parted ways some time ago, but sometimes it was nice to catch up with each other and spend some silent time together. Curious, Al reached over and took the book out of Ed's hands. Ed didn't try to stop him; he was too shocked. Al's eyes flickered over the page, and his cheeks flared red. "Where did you find this?" he asked, looking up at Ed.

Ed opened and closed his mouth for a moment before croaking, "Someone sent a whole box of these books. It's a collection of stories about... us. Me, you, Mustang, Hawkeye, everyone." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I can't believe... I would _never _let Mustang do that to me. I would scream and punch and _kill_ the bastard." He snatched the book back. "I've been reading these for a week, and this is the first one that I've come across where Roy _rapes_ me. I mean, there were others where he and I fell in love, and that was disgusting enough, but..." He trailed off.

Al furrowed his eyebrows. "So why are you reading them?"

Ed flipped through some pages until he came to the next story. "Because the first twenty were good. I kicked some ass, you helped, Roy _was _an ass but he was pretty cool too. It was realistic. They've just been getting progressively worse, though. I'm glad you weren't around when I read the one about you and _me_ in a relationship." He shuddered and let his eyes fall on the book before he could see Al's reaction. He didn't want to see it. He started reading the next one. It seemed innocent enough at first... Not ten minutes later, he grunted and scowled. How could this person _possibly_ know how he felt about snow? Or how many times he'd seen it in his life? It was fine despite that, and he kept reading... He scowled. Who _was _this person that he was supposedly instantly falling in love with?

"Brother?" Ed looked up at Al, glad to find anything to distract him from these awful, terrible, _addicting_ stories. Al looked worried. "Do they mention anything about... you know, our mom and stuff?" Ed listened to the question, and tried to remember back on everything he'd read. Nothing had really struck him as terribly insightful...

He shrugged. "Nothing more than we were orphaned at a youngish age."

Al's expression cleared. "Oh, good." Ed looked back down at his book, wrinkled his nose and skipped to the next short story. He grinned almost instantly. He liked these ones. The ones about Mustang getting totally humiliated - that is, they took place before Roy became blind. They were always brief, but _really_ funny. Halfway through, he was frowning softly and tapping his fingers against the page. It was incredible. At first, he'd expected Roy to be humiliated after some elaborate, cunning prank at Ed's hands, and that _did _happen, but as the story drew to a close, the person touched upon the very fiber of his relationship with Mustang and described it _perfectly_. Seeing an entire relationship put into a few sentences was a little humbling. Connotations made up for the subtleties of their relationship, but there weren't many of those. It was funny. Someone did the _exact same thing_ when describing his feelings toward being short... Was he really that simple of a person? Could people take what they heard and read about a person and understand just one tiny part of him _that_ well?

He shook his head and closed the book. Al looked up at the sound of a soft, unexpected _thup_ of a closing book. "Is Roy touching you again?"

Ed glowered at his brother. "No. I'm just a little disconcerted." He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. "Am I a simple person, Al?"

Al shrugged. "I think you're more direct than most people. But simple? Hardly."

Ed grinned fiercely at Al. "You always know just what to say. Come on, let's go get something to eat and actually talk during one of your visits."

Al smiled back. "Sure thing, brother."


End file.
